/ praɪz; NAmE / noun , adjective , verb
■ noun
1.
an award that is given to a person who wins a competition, race, etc. or who does very good work :
She was awarded the Nobel Peace prize.
He won first prize in the woodwind section.
There are no prizes for guessing (= it is very easy to guess) who she was with.
I won £500 in prize money .
Win a car in our grand prize draw !
—see also consolation prize
2.
something very important or valuable that is difficult to achieve or obtain :
World peace is the greatest prize of all.
■ adjective [ only before noun ]
1.
( especially of an animal, a flower or a vegetable ) good enough to win a prize in a competition :
prize cattle
2.
being a very good example of its kind :
a prize student
He's a prize specimen of the human race!
( informal )
She's a prize idiot (= very silly) .
■ verb [ vn ]
1.
[ usually passive ] prize sth (for sth) to value sth highly
SYN treasure :
an era when honesty was prized above all other virtues
Oil of cedarwood is highly prized for its use in perfumery.
2.
( NAmE ) = prise
••
WORD ORIGIN
Middle English : the noun, a variant of price ; the verb (originally in the sense estimate the value of ) from Old French pris- , stem of preisier to praise, appraise, from late Latin pretiare , from Latin pretium price.